


Stolen Summer

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: In The Bubble [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Blow Jobs, First Day of School, First Kiss, Hand Jobs, M/M, Skinny Dipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:46:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer before high school, Finn and Puck spend every week day sneaking into Finn's neighbor's pool, drinking boxed wine they swiped from Carole, and lamenting the need for clothes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen Summer

Puck wakes up on a Thursday morning at the beginning of June, the first day of summer break, and groans. 

“Noah!” his ma is yelling, and a quick look at Puck’s clock says it’s way earlier than he wanted to get up _any_ day during the summer, much less the first day of the summer. “Noah! Help me get your sister ready for her camp.”

Camp. Puck snorts to himself. Julie’s only six, and ‘camp’ is really just a word for glorified daycare. Puck may not be fifteen for another month and a half, but he remembers summers at the city-run ‘camp’ when he was eight and nine and ten and eleven, until he convinced his ma he was old enough to stay at home during the summer. Their duplex—townhome, his ma insists—isn’t far from Finn’s, anyway, so the two of them have spent the last three summers hanging out, once they actually wake up. 

Which is what Puck has every intention of doing this summer, too, the summer before they start high school. 

“Noah! Are you up?”

Puck groans and sits up, then heads out of his bedroom and into the hall, still stretching. 

“Noah, don’t do that in front of your sister!” his ma scolds, and Puck stares at her uncomprehendingly until she gestures at his boxers. Puck rolls his eyes and moves his hand. Dudes adjust themselves; there’s no reason to hide that from Julie. 

“Why’m I up?” Puck asks. 

“I need your help, Noah. Julie has to take a lunch to camp this first week.” Ma sighs and lowers her voice. “Until the free lunch program transfers information from the elementary school.” 

Puck sighs and nods. “I’ll go fix something,” he tells his ma, because it’s not Ma’s fault or Julie’s fault. There’s just not enough money, and if Puck’s honest, he misses the regular lunch during the school day more than anything. Free lunch isn’t something to sneeze about, especially since Julie’s too old for the WIC checks now. Julie likes Puck’s cooking, because Puck’s better at making the cheapest stuff taste good, and if he packs her lunch, she’ll probably eat it better than if their ma packed it. 

“Thank you, Noah,” his ma says gratefully, and Puck nods as he pads down the stairs. Lunchables are what Julie’s wanted to take to school all year, and Ma doesn’t buy the prepackaged ones ever, except the first day of school, but Puck’s pretty good at making a homemade one with their plastic containers. Crackers, sliced-up cheese and turkey, two kinds of fruit, and three cookies from Puck’s secret stash, the ones he’s hoarded through the year at school, picking the lock on the vending machine sometimes. It’s enough snack food to get him through a few weeks without his ma paying too much more for food, anyway, but he can spare Julie the cookies for her first day of ‘camp’. 

“Did you make me a Noah-able?” Julie asks, grinning happily when she gets downstairs for her bowl of cereal. 

“I did,” Puck says, pointing to her lunchbox. “Everything’s there, even a juice box.” And there was, lifted from the cafeteria on Tuesday. Julie’s smile is worth the risk of getting caught, but just in case, he’d lifted two. That way he could have given one back, and kept the one slid in his boxers. Since he didn’t get caught, Julie’ll have a juice box the first two days of ‘camp’.

“Thank you, Noah,” his ma says, half-dressed for her job at the ENT office in town. Medical assistant sounds fancy, but Puck knows that it doesn’t pay enough, not for all three of them. 

“Yeah,” Puck says, nodding. “Going back to sleep.”

“Are you going to see Finn today?” Julie calls after him. 

“Of course,” Puck shoots back down the stairs, already halfway up. 

He flops back onto his bed, and he can hear his ma and Julie’s mad scramble to get out the door. The sun’s shining into his room, too bright for Puck’s liking, and he rolls onto his stomach, pulling his pillow over his head. Barely past eight, and he can tell he’s going to be awake for the day, no chance of really going back to sleep. He lies in bed for a while anyway, until he looks at the clock and it’s closer to nine than eight. If he has to suffer, he might as well make Finn suffer, too. 

Finn doesn’t pick up the phone, though, and Puck pushes the off button on the phone a little more violently than necessary. Finn probably unplugged his extension, just so Puck couldn’t wake him up early. 

They only have the summer, though, to get ready for high school, to figure out which sport or sports they’re going to do, if there’s any club worth looking like a loser by joining, who they’re going to _be_ for the next four years. The high school had had two meet ‘n greets, divided up by last name, but Puck and Finn had gone to both of them, Puck tagging along on A-L night and Finn crashing Puck’s M-Z night. All the middle schools were invited, and there were plenty of people to meet. Reputations were going to be made, Puck could feel it, and he and Finn only have two and a half months before freshman orientation. The bottom rung of the ladder again, and Puck doesn’t like being at the bottom. The bottom was sixth grade with no growth spurt in sight; the bottom was spring of second grade, when everyone in their class figured out Puck’s dad had left and now Puck had a baby sister with no dad. The bottom isn’t a place Puck likes occupying, and he doesn’t want Finn there, either. They have to figure out how not to be on the bottom rungs of the ladder, whatever that’s going to mean, because sometimes, Puck doesn’t have a good feeling about high school at all, and he can’t figure out why. 

Puck waits another hour before he goes back downstairs to eat some cereal, and then he picks up the phone, dialing Finn’s number again and listening to it ring. “C’mon, pick up,” he mutters at the phone. 

“Hudson residence,” Finn finally says when he answers. “This is Finn.”

“You’re finally up,” Puck says. “Whose house?”

“Hey, Puck. My house. Mom got Chips Ahoy buy one, get one, so we’ve got eight packs!”

“Awesome,” Puck says. “I’ll leave now.”

“Bring your swimsuit. The Gordons are gone for the rest of the week, and I figured out how to get through the fence to their pool.”

“Thank you, Gordons,” Puck says. “Okay. Bye.” He hangs up the phone and runs back up the stairs to grab his swim trunks and the sunscreen, because if Finn burns, Carole will definitely notice. The walk over to Finn’s doesn’t take long, and no one’s outside, though Puck hears a lawnmower somewhere in the distance. He gets to Finn’s and goes to the side door, knocking three times. 

“Hey,” Finn says, opening the door. “I put some cookies in the microwave to make ‘em soft, so you’re just in time!”

“And nothing exploded?” Puck asks, walking in. “This is so much better than this time last week.”

“I figured I’d wait to do the marshmallows until you got here,” Finn says, shrugging. “I know you like it when they pop.”

“Surprised your mom’s not made us scrub the microwave more often,” Puck admits. “Ma got me up way early this morning. Had to make Julie’s lunch.”

“That sucks. I slept until ten,” Finn says proudly. “When I woke up, I had a dent down my whole face ‘cause I accidentally fell asleep on my DS.” He points to the side of his face. “You can still kinda see it. Cool, huh?”

Puck laughs. “Dork.” He pokes Finn’s face anyway, opening the microwave as it stops. “What’re we watching? Not warm enough to swim until afternoon.” 

“Mom rented _Transformers_ ,” Finn says. 

“Cool.” Puck picks up the cookies and walks towards Finn’s living room. “Think your mom’d notice if we looked up pay-per-view?”

“As long as we don’t buy it, probably not,” Finn says. He sits down on the sofa and turns on the tv. “Maybe we could tell her it wasn’t us. People steal cable all the time, I heard. Somebody could be stealing the pay-per-view from us.”

“We’ve got all summer,” Puck points out. “Until we’re everyone’s punching bag again.” 

“I’m pretty tall now,” Finn says.

“Yeah, you are,” Puck agrees. “Might make the seniors or juniors even madder, freshman being taller. I don’t know. I just remember sixth grade sucked.”

“If I’m bigger than they are, maybe they’ll leave me alone,” Finn says. “I won’t let ‘em beat you up, either. Hey, maybe they won’t even be able to tell we’re freshmen, ‘cause I’m so tall!”

“Freshman classes, dude,” Puck says. “Maybe we should lift weights or something, this summer.”

“I don’t have any weights, though.”

Puck frowns. “We could just find some heavy stuff, maybe. Gym’s kinda expensive.”

“We could lift the milk a bunch of times,” Finn says, then he almost leaps up off the sofa. “I forgot the milk! Hang on.” He sprints back into the kitchen, then returns with a half gallon of whole milk, setting it down on the coffee table. 

“Your mom’s gonna kill us,” Puck says, grinning. “I think that was my favorite lecture last summer, how she never found any glasses in the sink.”

“Nah, she’s just buying me my own half gallons this summer,” Finn explains. He opens the top of the milk jug and takes a big swig of the milk before setting it down again. “That’s why it’s a half and not a whole gallon. Now she can buy that skim stuff for herself and I can still have the real stuff.”

“Smart,” Puck says, cramming a cookie into his mouth and then taking a drink of milk himself. “So are we doing _Transformers_ or pay-per-view?”

Finn holds his hand out for the milk, taking it from Puck once Puck is done. “I don’t know. Maybe we should wait until a little later in the summer for pay-per-view?”

“Yeah, good point.” Puck shrugs. “You think if we do the right sport or whatever, that’d help?”

“Yeah, definitely. Like, definitely _not_ baseball, right?” Finn says. “Nobody cares about baseball players in movies or anything. We’ve gotta do football or basketball.”

“Basketball team’d sign you up,” Puck jokes as the credits start. “Yeah, can’t do any of ‘em that aren’t team sports, either.” Puck’s pretty sure that running track doesn’t help any with how the rest of the school treats someone. 

“If we joined the football team, everybody would think we were cool,” Finn muses, drinking from the milk carton again. 

“We _are_ cool. We just have to make sure everyone else in Lima realizes we are.”

“Nah,” Finn says. “You’re cool. I’m just tall.”

“Yeah, but if I’m cool, then whatever I say is cool is also cool. See?” Puck says triumphantly. 

“Okay,” Finn replies. “You want so more?” He offers Puck the milk jug.

“Yeah, thanks,” Puck says, nodding and taking the jug. “How many days can we crash the Gordons?”

“They don’t get back until next Monday. Mom’s getting their mail for them.”

Puck nods. “Pretty good start to summer.”

 

By Wednesday, Puck has a pretty good tan, and Finn doesn’t have a burn, because Puck’s making sure Finn wears sunscreen. He’s probably not putting it on soon enough or whatever, but they can’t put it on in the house, either, or Carole’d totally smell it. 

“You’re _almost_ getting a tan, dude,” Puck says. 

“I think I’m putting too much on,” Finn says. “I can’t really reach most of my back so I’m just glopping it on there. I’ll never get a tan like that, dude.”

“Dork.” Puck rolls his eyes. “You want me to spread it out?”

“Yeah, that would be cool,” Finn says. He turns his back towards Puck. Sure enough, it has long thick streaks of sunscreen down it. Puck shakes his head and starts rubbing the sunscreen in, trying to get it more even on Finn’s back. Puck remembers how Finn got a bad burn on July fourth, the summer before eighth grade, and neither of them want that to happen again. Finn sighs quietly and his shoulders sort of drop as Puck continues spreading out the sunscreen.

“Not sure you’re ever going to tan like me, though,” Puck says, wiping some of the excess off on Finn’s upper arms. “Guess it’s ‘cause you’re tall.” Finn’s skin is already almost hot to the touch, even though they haven’t been outside for that long, and as Puck drops his hands, he notices that apparently his dick thinks rubbing in sunscreen is exciting. “Cannonball contest?”

“You know I’ll win. I always win,” Finn says, standing up a little awkwardly. 

“Yeah, but I have more style,” Puck insists, turning slightly sideways as he gets up. He and Finn never have called each other out on their unintended boners, but it’s no reason to flaunt them, either. 

“I make a bigger splash,” Finn counters. To prove his point, he runs towards the pool and leaps, his arms wrapped around his legs, landing in the water with an impressive splash. 

“Style!” Puck says again, and he angles his body as he hits, aiming most of the splash towards Finn. Finn splutters as the water hits his face, wiping his eyes as he paddles towards the edge of the pool. 

“Yeah, that had style,” Finn concedes.

Puck smirks, feeling smug, and the cool water has the effect he had been hoping for, too; no more sunscreen-induced boner. “Told you.” Puck swims over to Finn and pounces, trying to drag him under. Finn manages to hang on to the pool’s edge with one hand, bracing the other hand against Puck’s chest to knock him back into the water, laughing.

Puck slips under, mouth open in a cut-off shout, and he launches back at Finn, tackling him with one shoulder leading. Finn lets go of the edge with an “oomph!” and starts to sink, and Puck laughs, half-underwater, which makes him start coughing a moment later. 

“Are you okay?” Finn asks once his head is above water again. “Are you drowning?”

“Nah,” Puck manages. “Just swallowing the pool, dork.” 

“Gross, dude. You know that the Gordons let their dogs swim in it!” Finn says. 

“That’s not my fault that they’re gross!” Puck retorts, realizing belatedly that clowning around is apparently just as interesting as putting on sunscreen. “Do you think they make their cat swim, too?” he asks, gesturing to the cat who watches them disapprovingly every day. 

“I’ve never heard a cat screeching out here, so I guess not,” Finn says. “You want to race?”

“Loser has to walk down to Ray’s and get…” Puck trails off, trying to think of what they could buy. 

“Watermelon,” Finn finishes. 

“Yeah, watermelon,” Puck agrees, knowing that whoever wins, they’ll both end up walking to Ray’s. “Ready?”

“On your mark, get set, oh _shit_ is that the Gordons?” As Puck turns towards the Gordons’ house to look, Finn pushes off the pool wall and starts swimming. 

“Cheater!” Puck yells, chasing after him. 

“I’m not a cheater!” Finn calls back between splashes. “I’m smart!”

“Cheater-cheater,” Puck insists, speeding up as much as he can to grab at Finn’s ankle. Finn’s hand is extended, almost touching the far pool wall, but as Puck catches Finn’s ankle he manages to jerk Finn backwards, so that Finn lands face-first in the water instead of touching the wall. Puck swims over the top of him, laughing, but Finn’s arms wrap around Puck’s middle, pulling them both towards the bottom of the pool as Finn sinks. 

Puck squirms, making a face at Finn through the water, and almost freezes when he realizes Finn’s got a boner. He doesn’t, though, just keeps squirming to get away, and as he breaks through the surface of the water, he wonders why their class on ‘puberty and growing up’ didn’t warn them better. 

Finn’s head pops up above the water just a second later, and Finn crows, “I win!”

“Do not!”

“Foot’s on the wall!” Finn declares, holding his leg up out of the water to demonstrate that it’s right by the wall. “I win! I win and you looooooose.”

“Feet don’t count!” Puck says. “Guess we both have to walk to Ray’s. We can get a two liter of pop, too.”

“Feet totally count!” Finn says.

“Nope,” Puck insists. “They don’t. But wear your flip-flops so you don’t burn your feet.” 

“Are you my mom now?” Finn asks. 

“I’m awesomer than your mom. I’d just say I told you so. She’d give you a lecture.”

“I’ll wear my flip-flops,” Finn says. “You want to swim some more and walk to Ray’s when it gets cooler? Or do you want to go now and we can swim more when we get back?”

Puck thinks for a few seconds. “Watermelon sounds good now,” he decides. “Then we can swim more after we eat it.”

“Cool.” Finn climbs out of the pool and stands on the concrete near the pool, shaking the water out of his hair. 

“Maybe I should get a haircut,” Puck says as he pulls himself out to sit on the side. “You think I should get a haircut before school starts?”

“What kind of haircut?” Finn asks. 

Puck shrugs. “I dunno. Something badass, so people know not to mess with us.” He stands up and pulls his t-shirt on. “But nothing that makes it curlier.”

“You could just shave it off,” Finn suggests.

“Ma’d cry about me looking like a skinhead,” Puck points out as they head for the fence. “Probably want me to get bar mitzvah’d again.”

“Dude, your mitzvah party was _soooo_ lame,” Finn says. “Hey, you could get a shirt that says ‘not a skinhead’ on it!”

“And wear it everyday?” Puck shakes his head. “I’d have to, I don’t know, get an earring or something.” 

“That could be cool, too, I guess,” Finn says, sounding dubious and making a face.

Puck snorts. “You don’t think it sounds cool,” he argues, heading towards the road. “I didn’t mean _two_ earrings. Just one side.”

“Maybe it could be cool?” Finn offers, shrugging. He follows Puck, almost stepping on the back of Puck’s heels when the front edge of Finn’s flip-flop collides with the back edge of Puck’s. “Sorry!”

“S’okay.” No one watches them walk up to Ray’s, probably because everyone else is either at work or inside because of the heat. The blast of air conditioning when the door slides open makes Puck shiver for a minute, and he runs his hand through his hair, water falling onto the floor. “Think they have any cold watermelon?”

“Probably in the already-cut-up-fruit section,” Finn says. 

“No fun,” Puck pronounces. “Those are seedless half the time.” They head down the pop aisle, and one of the Ray’s employees gives them a dirty look, glancing at the water they’re still dripping. 

“We could put it in the freezer for a little while, once we get it home,” Finn suggests. “You wanna go pick out the pop?”

“Yeah, okay,” Puck says with a nod, and he ends up grabbing the grape pop. “We can make floats with that ice cream your mom thinks she hid in your freezer.”

“Awesome.” Finn picks up the biggest watermelon from the watermelon pyramid, and they walk through the self check-out, ringing up the watermelon and pop before heading out the front door. “Hey, I think that one guy in there really didn’t like us!”

“Maybe he was going to have to mop.” Puck shrugs. “Not my problem. Anyway, we put on shoes and shirts and that’s all the signs say.”

“Yeah we did,” Finn agrees. 

When they get back to Finn’s, Puck sticks the pop in the refrigerator and leans against the counter. “Let’s cut up that watermelon and go spit the seeds out back.”

Finn cuts the watermelon into big half-circles that they put on a plate and take out to the backyard, where they sit on the concrete and removes their shirts, so they don’t ruin them with watermelon mess. Finn hands a slice to Puck and then picks one up for himself. 

“This is a pretty great summer so far,” Finn says, in between bites of his watermelon. 

“We should make a list again,” Puck says. “Like we tried to two years ago, remember? Except maybe we should just make it and try to remember it, instead of writing it down.” 

“Yeah, that would be cool. We should try to walk to every park in Lima,” Finn suggests. “Swim in all the ponds.”

“Skinny-dipping,” Puck adds. “At least once.”

Finn looks up suddenly, his face squished into his confused look. “Just us?”

“I don’t think you usually have skinny-dipping parties,” Puck says. “We should drink some beer, too.” 

“Where are we gonna get beer?” Finn asks. “My mom only buys wine. It’s boxed wine, though, so we could probably drink some of that and she wouldn’t be able to tell.”

“Maybe I could shove a bottle in my boxers at Ray’s,” Puck says. “I dunno, they’re bigger than juice boxes. Wine’ll work too, I guess. We only have wine on holidays.”

“She just bought a new box. You want to stay over tonight?” Finn asks. “Or do you have to wait for Friday, ‘cause of Julie?”

“Nah, I can do tonight. Lunch kicked in.” Puck takes a bite of his watermelon and spits the seed as far as he can. “Nana wants you to come to temple one Saturday, take us out to lunch, by the way.”

“I can’t understand half of what they say,” Finn complains. “And they spit a lot.”

“Nana thinks you’re going to learn Hebrew just by showing up or something. But lunch is good, right?” 

“Yeah, lunch is good. I guess I can just sleep through the spitting part, right?” Finn asks. “You can sit in between me and Nana.”

“I _always_ sit between you and Nana,” Puck points out. “What else we wanna do this summer?”

“We should sneak into an R-rated movie,” Finn says. 

“Oh, yeah.” Puck nods. “Oh, we should get one of each of the fried things at the fair.”

“We should see how many nights in a row we can stay up,” Finn suggests. “I heard that if you don’t sleep for three or four days, you’ll start having, like, hallucinations and stuff.”

“Awesome!” Puck grins. “Oh, I’ll bring my guitar over sometime and I can try to teach you again.”

“Awesome, yeah,” Finn agrees. “Maybe I can make the chords this time.”

“Exactly.” Finn’s hands are so much bigger than Puck’s that Puck has a hard time teaching him, but maybe Puck’s hands have caught up enough. “Anything else?”

“Well,” Finn begins, looking down at his watermelon sheepishly. “Nah, it’s dumb.”

“It’s me, dude. What?”

“Well, we’re starting high school, and I still haven’t ever even kissed anybody,” Finn says. “So maybe I can put that on the list for me?”

Puck frowns a little, taking a bite of his watermelon before he replies. “Me either,” he admits. 

“You don’t have to say that just ‘cause I did,” Finn says. “It’s cool if you have.”

“Nah, remember that ‘seven minutes in heaven’ crap? And that chick was all freaking out once we got into the closet, so.” Puck shrugs. “Told her we could tell everyone we made out. She’s a really good liar, though.” 

“You really didn’t make out with her?” Finn asks. “For real?”

“For real,” Puck confesses. “She made up a good story, though, didn’t she?”

“Yeah! How come you never told me?” 

“Kinda crazy, right? I mean, for all I know, it was just _me_ ,” Puck tries to explain. 

“Dude, I really thought you’d made out with that girl,” Finn says, sounding oddly betrayed. “You _lied_ to me.”

“I didn’t lie!” Puck protests. “You never asked if I really had or not!”

Finn scowls and picks up another slice of watermelon. “You should’ve told me. I thought I was the only one who still hadn’t made out with anybody.”

“Didn’t know it mattered.”

“I just felt lamer than I needed to,” Finn explains. “Plus, I figured that meant you had, like, a _plan_ or something. You know, for high school.”

“Aw, man.” Puck groans. “No idea there.” He can’t believe he forgot about that, really; dating or hooking up or whatever is probably pretty damn important. 

“Well, that sucks, ‘cause I just thought whatever it was that you did, I could do that too, since you knew what you were doing, only you _don’t_ ,” Finn says. 

Puck scowls. “Well, sorry.” He feels oddly defensive about the entire thing. 

“I guess you better _had_ put it on the list for both of us, then,” Finn says, a little more harshly than his usual tone. 

“Fine.” Puck takes a bite of watermelon, still scowling. It’s not _his_ fault that he hasn’t made out with anyone, or that Finn hasn’t either. 

“Fine,” Finn retorts, spitting a seed out forcefully. 

Puck doesn’t say anything else, just eating his watermelon and spitting seeds until he hears Carole’s car pulling into Finn’s driveway. “Your mom’s home.” 

“Fine.”

Puck takes another bite of watermelon and chews it slowly. “Still want me to stay over?”

Finn quickly turns to look at Puck, blinking. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

Puck shrugs exaggeratedly as Carole comes out onto the patio. “Staying for dinner, Noah?” she asks, and Puck nods, trying to muster up a smile around his mouthful of watermelon. 

“Puck’s staying the night, okay?” Finn says. “Lunch started at camp.”

“Sure,” Carole says. “Did you call your mother yet, Noah?” Puck shakes his head, and Carole shakes hers as well. “I’ll let her know.”

“Thanks!” Puck calls after her. He turns back to Finn. “What time does she go to sleep now?”

“She’s usually in bed by ten, but she’ll go to bed earlier if she’s drinking her boxed wine,” Finn says. “If she gets out the picture album, she’ll be in bed by nine or nine-fifteen.”

“Awesome.” 

 

That night isn’t a picture album night, but the following Monday turns out to be, which means that by nine-thirty, Puck and Finn are back outside on the patio, lights off, and a box of wine between them. “Wonder what time the Gordons go to bed,” Puck says, sniffing at the wine in his cup. 

“They’re really old, so I bet they go to bed at least as early as my mom,” Finn says. He also sniffs his wine. “This smells like nail polish.”

“Never tasted nail polish,” Puck says, taking a cautious sip and making a face. “People drink this with fish?”

“My mom drinks it with hot dogs and casseroles, mostly,” Finn says. “This tastes pretty bad, though.”

“Yeah, it does.” Puck takes another sip. “But it’s like, sophisticated or whatever, right?” He laughs. “We’ve got _class_.” 

“Yeah, I feel really classy,” Finn says. He drinks the rest of his cup in one swallow. “It tastes better if you drink it really fast.” He pours himself some more and drinks that cup fast, too. 

“Huh.” Puck gulps the remainder of his down, and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.” He fills his cup up with more than before, and drains about half of it. “You know what I think is weird?”

“Yeah? What’s weird?”

“The whole gay thing.” Puck frowns at his cup. “How do people know they’re gay, anyway?” Every time Puck overhears the news, there’s something about gay marriage or whatever, and he just doesn’t get it. It makes him feel weird, like there’s something he’s not in control of, and that’s about as bad as the bottom rung. 

“Huh. I never thought about it,” Finn says. “I guess somebody tells them. Like their mom or a teacher or something.” He puts a little more wine into his cup, sipping it slowly this time.

“That sounds weird.” Puck drinks more of his wine. “Why would someone’s mom know? Ma says that’s why _Fiddler_ seems lame, ‘cause of the matchmaker.” 

“Well, _I_ don’t know! How am I supposed to know how people know?” Finn counters. “I haven’t even kissed anybody, so I couldn’t tell anyone if they’re gay or not.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t either,” Puck retorts. “You think it’s just like people dating or something?” 

“You mean, just dating whatever people and seeing if you like it?”

Puck shrugs. “I mean, people decide who they want to date, right? So maybe it’s like that. They just realize they want to date another girl or another dude?” He shrugs again. “There’s gotta be something.”

“Maybe they just wake up one day and realize they think dudes look hot,” Finn says. “Like how my mom is all the time telling me that one day I’ll wake up and I won’t be able to think about anything but girls. Your mom says stuff like that to you, too.”

Puck stays quiet for a long moment, thinking about what Finn’s saying, and how he got hard just putting sunscreen on Finn’s back, and he frowns a little. “Yeah. I dunno,” he admits. “Seems like a big ol’ waste of time.” 

“Girls?” Finn asks. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Puck drinks the rest of his wine. “We should see.” 

“See what?”

“If we’re gay,” Puck blurts out, before he can talk himself out of it. 

“Oh.”

“Um.” Puck pours more wine into his cup. “I mean—” he cuts himself off and drinks all of the wine in one gulp. 

“I’m _trying_ ,” Finn says. “I don’t know how long I have to concentrate on it to know either way.”

Puck looks at him, barely making out his expression in the dark. “I didn’t mean thinking,” he says slowly. 

“But if thinking about girls non-stop means you like girls, you’ve gotta think about guys to see if you like guys,” Finn explains, like it’s perfectly logical. 

Puck doesn’t think about anything non-stop, but the things he thinks about most are definitely not girls. “We should go swimming,” he says. “Gordons are probably asleep.” He thinks a lot about food, and Finn, and his sister, and that doesn’t really tell him anything. 

“Cool,” Finn says. He stands up abruptly, but sways a little on his feet. “Hey! I think I’m drunk!”

“Awesome.” Puck stands up more slowly. “Maybe I am, too. Everything’s so bright.” 

“You gonna be able to get through the fence okay?” Finn asks him. 

“Of course,” Puck says, following Finn towards the fence. All the lights at the Gordons’ are out, and Puck laughs when they walk towards the pool. 

“What’s so funny?” Finn whispers. 

“We should probably save the skinny-dipping for one of the ponds,” Puck whispers back loudly. 

“No way! Those things are dirty and they’ve got, like, _fish_ and stuff!”

“So you want to skinny-dip here?” Puck asks, pulling off his shirt. 

“It’s on our _list_ , Puck!” Finn insists. He pulls his own shirt off and drops it into the grass. 

“We did at least walk to one park,” Puck says, then looks between Finn and the water before he pulls down his shorts. “Ready?” he asks Finn, hands on his boxers. 

“Just don’t be loud when you get in. No cannonballs!” Finn pushes his shorts and underwear off together and takes a few tentative steps to the pool’s edge. “It’s gonna be cold.”

“Yeah.” Puck kicks his boxers off, eyes widening at the thought that one of them could have a boner _now_ and it’d be pretty hard to ignore. He sits down on the edge, wincing at the concrete on his ass. “Ouch, dammit.” He pushes himself off the edge into the pool, turning to look at Finn. Finn paces back and forth at the pool’s edge, finally easing himself into the shallow end. 

Puck swims across the pool once, then stands and shakes his head, watching Finn. It feels _weird_ , swimming without anything on. Finn sinks lower and lower into the water, his grimace visible in the moonlight. 

“It’s _cold_ ,” Finn whispers.

“Yeah,” Puck agrees, nodding. “At least we don’t have to skinny-dip again after this.”

“The skinny part’s not what’s bad. It’s just the water is cold!”

Puck laughs quietly. “Probably wouldn’t feel so cold otherwise, though.” He floats on his back, staring up at the stars. “Do you remember any of the constellations?”

“One of them’s a bear,” Finn says. “And one of them’s… also a bear?”

“I think there’s a crab?” Puck offers. “I don’t see any pictures right now, though.”

“Maybe a lion or a tiger,” Finn says, his voice closer to Puck’s ear now. 

“Maybe, yeah,” Puck says, turning his head towards Finn’s voice to see that Finn’s moved a lot closer. The wine must be getting to him, because the next thing Puck blurts out is, “I don’t know that I’m gonna like high school very much.”

“How come?” Finn asks. Just his head is above the pool’s surface as he quietly treads water next to Puck. 

Puck would shrug if he wasn’t floating on his back. “Too much stuff we gotta figure out, and that’s not counting classes.” He makes a face. “Classes suck, too.” 

“But we’ll watch each other’s backs and help each other figure it all out,” Finn says. “We’ll figure out how to be cool and it’ll be good.”

“I’m supposed to be reassuring you.”

“About what?” Finn asks. “I already told you, I’m tall. Nobody’ll mess with us.”

Somehow, Puck’s pretty sure it’s not that simple, but he nods and flips over, swimming toward the wall. “Warmer yet?”

“Used to it, anyway.”

Puck grins. “Yeah.” They swim quietly for a bit, and Puck’s starting to relax about getting caught when the Gordons’ kitchen light flips on. “Shit!” 

The outside light comes on a few seconds later, and Puck grabs Finn, pressing them against the far wall of the pool. Finn’s breathing seems overly heavy and loud, and Puck resists the impulse to look over his shoulder to see if Mr. Gordon’s scanning his property for intruders.

“Good thing our clothes are at this end,” Puck whispers. Finn nods silently, his eyes wide, and his chest rising and falling rapidly with his heavy breaths. Puck’s not exactly sure how it happens, but in what seems like just a second, he and Finn go from staring at each other to kissing, lips pressing hard together. Puck’s not really sure how long they kiss, either, or if they’re doing it ‘right’, whatever that means, but when they pull apart, the light is off again and Finn’s eyes are still wide. 

“The water is cold,” Finn says quietly, after a few minutes of the two of them staring at each other.

“We’ll go drink more wine,” Puck says, pushing away from Finn before climbing out and pulling his clothes back on. “Okay?” he adds belatedly, heading towards the fence. 

“Thought we were caught,” Finn says. “My mom would really yell.”

“Yeah.” Puck frowns. “Better not get caught ‘til later in the summer,” he adds, picking up his cup and filling it with wine again. “Want to go in?”

“We should put the box back in the fridge,” Finn says, filling his cup, too, once Puck is done with the wine. “Then maybe I’ll put on some sweatpants.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees, picking up the box and following Finn inside. He can hear Carole snoring as they walk quietly to Finn’s bedroom, and Puck peels off his wet clothes and puts on a new pair of shorts before sitting down on Finn’s bed, wine cup still in his hand. Finn swaps his damp shorts for a pair of grey sweatpants, pulling on a t-shirt one arm at a time, so he doesn’t have to put his wine down. Once he’s dressed, he sits down next to Puck, balancing his cup on his knee.

“So… hey,” Finn says, smiling kind of nervously. 

“Well, that’s two things off our list. Right?” Puck says, trying to sound nonchalant. 

“Yeah,” Finn says.

“I don’t know what it means,” Puck admits. “Maybe kissing’s just fun.”

“Did you like it?” Finn asks.

“I just said it was fun, didn’t I?” Puck replies, nodding a little. 

“I liked it,” Finn says. He drinks his wine and holds the cup up near his face, peering at it closely, not looking at Puck. “We could do it some more, if you felt like it.”

Puck drinks the rest of his wine and nods, putting his cup down. “Yeah, we should do that.” 

Finn puts his cup down next to Puck’s. “So, uh…” He puts his hand on Puck’s shoulder, like he’s not sure what to do with it. “I’m not sure how to start.”

“Me either.” Puck leans towards Finn, though, and manages to connect his lips with Finn’s. Finn starts to laugh, almost a giggle, as his mouth meet Puck’s, lips parted slightly. Puck’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but Finn doesn’t pull away, so Puck keeps kissing him. He tentatively pushes his tongue into Finn’s mouth, not sure if he’s really doing any of right, but he _does_ like it. Finn startles a little, but then his tongue touches Puck’s, and he doesn’t laugh anymore. 

Puck almost starts to groan when he realizes he’s got another boner, but then he realizes that no, it’s probably a really good thing, since he’s kissing someone at the same time. Kissing Finn, and feeling a little hazy, and the next thing he can think about is that he damn well hopes Finn is hard, too. When Finn starts to list towards the bed, pulling Puck down with him and partially on top of him, his hip lands over Finn’s dick, and he realizes that yeah, Finn’s definitely hard. It makes him feel kind of powerful, and a little giddy, but he’s not sure if the wine is causing the giddy feeling. 

He pulls away, panting, and looks at Finn. “Yeah,” he says. “I like it.”

“Me, too,” Finn replies. “A lot. I like it a lot, and we should do it more.”

Puck grins and starts kissing Finn again, mouths open and Puck thinks it’s a little sloppier than before, even, but he likes it. Finn wraps his arms around Puck, like he’s done so many times where they were just wrestling or playing around, but he holds Puck against him. Puck likes that, too, squirming a little and pressing against Finn, making sure Finn’s still hard against his hip. Finn starts trembling underneath him, then he says, in a breathy, panicky voice, “Oh. Oh no! Oh!” and really starts to shake, his hips bucking up against Puck. 

Puck pushes back, because it feels good, and he stares at Finn. “Wha—” he starts to ask, taking in Finn’s red face and how his mouth is shaped in a ridiculously endearing ‘O’, and he realizes just how much Finn liked it at the same Puck starts to wonder when ‘endearing’ entered his vocabulary. “Oh, oh, damn,” Puck says, and he thrusts down against Finn, because coming sounds like a fantastic idea. 

“I’m sorry!” Finn says, his face still red. 

“Why?” Puck asks. 

“‘Cause I just— I just—”

“Yeah,” Puck says, then drops his head as he moves faster against Finn. “Kinda awesome, dork.”

“Yeah?” Finn asks. “For real?”

“For—yeah, for real,” Puck says. “Oh, dammit,” he gasps, his body shaking as he comes, and he closes his eyes. “Good idea.”

“Did you—” Finn stops abruptly, his chest rising and falling with his breathing, jostling Puck a little. “We just— did we just have _sex_?”

“Maybe?” Puck says uncertainly. “We did something.” He pauses. “It was fun.” 

“Yeah,” Finn breathes. “It was _really_ fun.”

“We could do it more like, tomorrow. Or whenever,” Puck says. 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. His arms, which are still wrapped around Puck, relax, and one of Finn’s hands moves to the back of Puck’s head, patting it.

“But we should probably sleep now,” Puck says quietly, feeling really tired suddenly. 

“Yeah, okay,” Finn says. “Do we have to move?”

“Nah,” Puck says, yawning. “Night.”

“Night,” Finn replies. He keeps patting Puck’s head for a little longer before his arms both go slack. Puck smiles to himself slightly and closes his eyes, listening to Finn breath. 

 

Almost two weeks later on a Friday night, Puck’s at home, because the next day he and Ma and Julie are all going to temple, and Puck stares at the ceiling in his bedroom. He hasn’t spent _every_ night at Finn’s, but it feels like he mostly have. They swipe whatever wine they can, and once Puck did manage to get two bottles of beer out of the Ray’s, and after they drink, they kiss and grind and after both of them come, they go to sleep. 

It’s good and it’s awesome, and Puck wishes they could find a way that it could be _every_ night, but he doesn’t know what it means. What he thought before is still true, except now he admits it’s more like four things: food, Finn, Julie, and coming. He’s not sure it’s _sex_ , but it’s at least _like_ sex, and he wants to keep doing it. 

He’s not sure if that means he’s gay, or if it means Finn’s gay, or what. Maybe it’d feel that way to kiss a girl, too, and to grind against her until he comes. Something in the back of his brain tells him it wouldn’t, but he tries not to listen to it. He’s not ready to stand up and say he’s gay. Even if he were sure, he’s not sure he _wants_ to be gay. He doesn’t want to kiss anyone else, boy or girl, so maybe it’s just Finn. There’s nothing wrong with kissing Finn, anyway, and Puck’s pretty sure they don’t have to decide what they are right away. 

That’s what Puck tells himself a few days later when they’re at the fair, eating all the fried oreos and twinkies and other fried crap, ‘cause it doesn’t really _mean_ anything if he wants to lick the powdered sugar off of Finn’s nose. 

When they get back to Finn’s house, Finn’s groaning because his stomach hurts from all the fried food, and when Finn heads to his room, Puck goes into the kitchen and gets a ginger ale and takes it into Finn’s bedroom. 

“Here,” he says. “Drink some of this.”

“I think I’ve gotta puke,” Finn says, sounding miserable.

Puck grimaces and picks up the trash can in Finn’s room, sticking it under Finn’s chin. “Here!”

Finn immediately pukes into the trash can, which is luckily lined with a plastic bag, retching loud a few times before a few painful-looking dry heaves. Puck picks up the ginger ale again and offers it silently, starting to move the trash can away. 

“Food or sun?” he asks, because it’s not the first time either of them have made Finn sick. 

“Both?” Finn answers. He’s pale around his eyes and mouth, but that just makes the sunburn across his nose stand out more readily. Puck’s pretty sure Carole didn’t make him put on enough sunscreen, but it wasn’t like Puck was going to say anything in front of her. 

“Drink, then,” Puck says, nudging Finn’s leg with his knee. “Then lie down.”

Finn nods his head and sips the ginger ale, still looking pitiful, and after a few swallows, he hands the ginger ale back to Puck. 

“Good thing we usually get sick at the same time,” Puck says almost cheerfully as Finn lies down. Puck lies down behind him, his hands on Finn’s stomach, and he rubs it gently. “Be weird if I ever skipped school ‘cause you had a bug, I guess.” 

“That’s nice,” Finn murmurs. 

“Gonna go to sleep on me, dork?” Puck asks. 

“Yeah,” Finn answers, even more quietly. 

Puck laughs softly. “Okay.” He keeps rubbing Finn’s stomach, and after more time passes, Carole comes in and gets the trash bag and then comes back with a pop for Puck. “Thanks,” he whispers. 

“I should have made him drink more water before we left,” Carole says, and Puck just shrugs. Maybe so, but maybe not. “Good night, Noah.”

“Night,” Puck says. He finishes his pop and then closes his eyes, hoping Finn doesn’t wake up still sick. It kind of sucks that Finn was sick, because they probably could have gotten some wine and made out, but Puck figures it’s not like Finn wanted to be sick or anything. There’s always another night. 

 

By the middle of the next week, Puck’s stayed at Finn’s another two nights, and by mid-afternoon, they’ve already snuck into the Gordons’ pool while they were out, swimming for a while before heading back to Finn’s backyard and sitting on the patio. 

“Did your mom buy more ice cream yet?”

“She got me some ice cream sandwiches. They were on sale,” Finn says. “And she said we can eat both boxes, but that if I touch her fudge ripple stuff, she’s grounding me until school starts.”

“Blame me,” Puck says. “She knows I love that kind, too.” 

“She might ground _you_ ,” Finn points out.

“Damn.” Puck shakes his head and water flies out, even though they’ve been out of the pool for more than a few minutes. “I need a haircut.”

“It’s shaggy,” Finn agrees. He sticks his hand in Puck’s hair and wiggles it around, making more water shake out. “You just gonna get it cut short?”

“I dunno. What do you think?”

“I think…” Finn grabs Puck’s head and moves it around, _hmm_ ing to himself. “I think it would look boring if you just got a regular short haircut. You’re not boring, dude.”

Puck laughs. “That’s good. What’s not boring?”

“You could get dreadlocks.”

“Dude, no.” Puck shakes his head. “It’d take too long, too. What else? It’s gotta be kinda badass.”

“Uh. You could bleach it like Billy Idol’s hair,” Finn suggests. “Isn’t his hair sorta curly, too?”

“That sounds like a lot of work? Don’t you have to re-bleach hair a lot?” Puck asks. 

“I’ve never bleached hair, dude. I have no clue. I mean, unless you’re gonna do, like, a mohawk or something, I can’t thi—”

“That’s it,” Puck interrupts. “I should do a mohawk.”

“Seriously?” Finn asks.

“Why not?” Puck says. “It’s not boring. You think it’d be badass enough?”

“It’s definitely badass,” Finn says. “Is your mom gonna freak?”

“I wouldn’t look like a skinhead, right? So if she does, I’ll tell her that.”

“Right. So, are you gonna go to a place to get it done?”

“I guess so. Have to find the money. You wouldn’t think it’d cost that much, since it’s just shaving it, but who knows.”

“We might have some clippers,” Finn says. “I think I’ve seen a pair in that box of my dad’s old Army stuff. We could do it tonight!”

“Yeah? Cool.” Puck grins. “Just don’t make it too crooked.”

“Yeah. I’ll just go down and find them. You wait here and, uh. Take your shirt off and put on a towel,” Finn instructs. He goes back inside and doesn’t come back out for almost ten minutes, and Puck strips off his shirt, wandering inside to the kitchen. He puts a towel around his neck and sits backwards on one of the chairs. 

“Finn?” he calls. 

“Sorry!” Finn calls back, finally emerging from the basement with a small black box in his hands. “Mom’d moved it somewhere weird, and I had to unstack a bunch of stuff.”

“S’cool,” Puck says with a shrug. “In here okay? It’s kinda hot and I figured you needed to plug them in.”

“Yeah. Wait.” Finn sets the box down on the kitchen table. “I’m doing it?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah, I can do that!” Finn says. He opens the box and spends a couple of minutes fumbling with the razor and its guards before finally plugging it in. “Okay. You ready?”

“Sure. Let ‘er rip or whatever,” Puck says. 

Finn responds by turning on the razor, which buzzes loudly for a half a minute before Finn touches it to the back of Puck’s head. Finn alternates between the two sides, first around Puck’s ears and then working his way towards the middle. After a bit, the razor turns off, and Puck can hear Finn doing something else. 

“What now?” Puck asks, brushing hair off of himself and shaking out the towel a little. 

“I’m just looking at it,” Finn says. 

“Yeah?”

“Looks like a mohawk.”

“But you’re not done?”

“I’m just changing out the guard to cut the middle part, dude, hold your horses,” Finn says. “Unless you want a floppy, super-long mohawk.”

“Um, no,” Puck agrees. “But I don’t have any horses.”

“Well, close your eyes,” Finn says. The razor clicks back on and then Puck can feel it running along the center of his head, alternating with Finn’s fingers. When the razor finally clicks off again, Finn says, “Okay, all done.” He keeps his hands on Puck’s head, though, feeling down the hair in the center and over the smooth, buzzed sides. 

“How’s it look?” Puck asks, running his own hand over the right hand side. “I don’t think I can remember having my hair this short.” 

“I think it looks pretty good,” Finn says. “Go look in the bathroom mirror and come back and tell me what you think.”

“Okay.” Puck nods and brushes off more hair as he stands up, then heads down the hall. He actually startles a little when he first sees his reflection, because it’s definitely different. It’s not boring, either, and Puck grins at his reflection. “Yeah, that’s pretty badass,” he says, running his hands over his head. “Damn, that was a lot of hair.” Puck heads back down the hall. “That’s awesome, dude.” 

“Yeah? I didn’t mess it up too bad?” Finn asks, a small smile on his face. 

“Nah, it’s definitely not boring, either,” Puck says, grinning at Finn. “Think I should definitely keep it this way?”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “I like it. It looks good.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot, looking expectantly at Puck and occasionally glancing in the direction of his bedroom. “Did you wanna…”

Puck’s grin gets wider and he nods. “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he says, grabbing Finn’s wrist and pulling him down the hall. It’s afternoon, not nighttime, and they haven’t had anything to drink, which Puck thinks should probably mean something, but all he can really process it meaning is that the haircut was a damn good idea. 

Finn starts kissing Puck before the bedroom door closes all the way behind them, moving his hands over the shaved sides of Puck's head. Puck parts his lips, kissing back hard and trying to move them towards Finn’s bed. He slides his leg between Finn’s, pressing up just enough to feel that Finn’s already hard, and then they’re at the bed, the edge of the mattress pressing against Puck’s leg and at the back of Finn’s legs. 

Finn topples backwards onto the bed, pulling Puck on top of him and squirming up against Puck's leg. Puck presses down with his leg for a moment, then half-sits up. “We should—” he stops and runs his hand over his head. “It’s hot, we should lose the shorts,” he finally says.

Finn eyes widen slightly, but he nods, one of his hands still stroking the side of Puck's head. "Okay, yeah. You're right. It's hot in here."

Puck stands up long enough to pull off his shorts and his boxers, and he’s about to climb back on top of Finn when he stops, glancing at Finn’s face to see if Finn is looking at him. Finn is, his eyes darting between Puck's face and his dick, roving across Puck's chest and then back down again.

Finn catches the waistband of his shorts with his thumbs and works them down, not sitting up really, just wriggling out of his clothes while he keeps looking Puck up and down. Puck grins, doing the same to Finn, and he kneels on the edge of the bed. “Good to know you’re proportional,” he says with a little bit of a smirk. 

"I have no idea what that means, dude," Finn confesses. His face is flushed and pink, and he reaches out to trail his fingers down Puck's stomach. "But you look really awesome right now."

“Yeah?” Puck leans over, his head near Finn’s. “Meant that you’re not just tall.” He stretches one hand down Finn’s side, thumb stroking near Finn’s hip. 

"No?" Finn asks. His eyes still travel around Puck's body, back up to his face. 

“Nope,” Puck says, smirking again and moving his hand to Finn’s dick. “So a mohawk does it for you?” 

Finn’s eyes close tightly, and he makes a high, breathy squeak before he's able to start talking. "Looks… Badass," Finn says. "You look _so_ cool."

Finn's hand moves farther down Puck's chest, tracing across his ribs and tickling a little before sliding down Puck's stomach. “Yeah?” Puck says, wrapping his fingers around Finn and tugging upwards just a little. “Damn. This good?” 

Finn nods his head emphatically, letting his finger drift lower, brushing gently through Puck's hair before wrapping around Puck's dick, squeezing very gently. "This okay?"

“Yeah. Me too,” Puck says, not sure if he means that it’s good having Finn’s hand around him, having Finn in his hand, or both. It’s probably both, and he nods. “Definitely okay,” he says, leaning the rest of the way down to kiss Finn. Finn kisses back hungrily, sucking on Puck's tongue as both their hands move on each other's dicks, Finn's hand a little slower and gentler. Puck bites at Finn’s lower lip experimentally, and Finn lets out a little moan. 

"Ohhh," Finn says, tightening his grip on Puck. "Oh, oh Puck."

Puck grins and bites again, running his tongue over Finn’s lip afterwards, and he jerks his hand a little faster on Finn’s dick. “More?” 

Finn makes a noise somewhere between a whimper and a whine, stroking Puck's dick even more firmly. "More," he agrees. "Puck, oh shit, oh shit!"

Puck kisses Finn hard, then bites down a third time on Finn’s lip, harder than before, and the noise Finn makes is closer to a wail, his whole body shaking as he suddenly starts to come, spurting all over Puck's hand and both their stomachs. 

“Oh, fuck, that’s hot,” Puck breathes, and he thrusts down into Finn’s hand repeatedly until he comes, adding to the mess that’s already between them. “Oh, damn,” Puck says tiredly, lying on top of Finn despite the slick feeling. “That was awesome.”

"How soon can we do that again?" Finn asks. His eyes are closed, his face and chest flushed a rosy-red color. "I want to do that again."

“We’re almost fifteen,” Puck says. “Like, twenty minutes, I bet.” He runs a thumb over Finn’s lip slowly. “Maybe faster.” 

"You're so cool," Finn murmurs. "So, so awesome."

“Pretty awesome yourself,” Puck counters, his thumb still lingering on Finn’s lip. “Why didn’t we try that sooner? Anything else you want to try?” 

Finn blushes a deep crimson. "Some stuff, maybe…"

Puck shifts. “Tell me.” He grins at Finn. “You’re kinda hot when you blush, you know.” 

Finn's blush deepens. "No. I mean, I didn't know."

“Yeah. C’mon, tell me.” 

"I, uh." Finn turns ever darker red. "Wanna suck your dick some time. If, you know. If you…"

“Oh, _fuck_ yeah,” Puck says, his brain helpfully supplying a picture of Finn with Puck’s dick in his mouth. “Oh, yeah. Uh.” He shifts again. “Scratch what I said about twenty minutes, by the way.” 

"Yeah?" Finn asks, with a shy smile.

“Yeah.” Puck presses down against Finn. “See? Or feel, I guess.”

"I feel," Finn agrees. 

“S’your fault,” Puck says, smirking a little. 

“Is it bad? For it to be my fault?”

Puck’s smirk gets broader. “ _I_ don’t think so,” he says, thrusting down again. “Do you?”

“No, I think maybe it’s good that it’s my fault,” Finn says. 

“Yep,” Puck agrees. “What about me?” He puts his hand between the two of them again and barely touches Finn’s dick. 

“It’s your fault, too,” Finn replies. “Also good.”

Puck feels his smirk return and he curls his fingers around Finn. “We don’t really have anything else we have to do before dinner.” He pauses. “Well, before your mom gets home, anyway.” 

Finn’s eyes half-roll back and half-close, and he answers, “ _Awesome_.”

“So awesome,” Puck agrees, and then he leans forward, kissing Finn and making them both stop talking. 

 

Almost two weeks pass with a little less wine and a lot of jerking off and kissing, daytime or the nights Puck sleeps over. Finn sleeps over one Saturday night, but Julie and Puck’s ma are lighter sleepers than Carole, which means Finn and Puck spend a lot of time freezing when they hear a noise. 

The next Monday, though, Puck heads over to Finn’s as soon as he wakes up, and it feels weird and normal at the same time to just press Finn against the wall as soon as Puck’s inside, kissing him roughly. 

“Hey,” Puck says, pulling away and stepping further into the house. 

“Hey,” Finn answers. The expression on his face is a mix of excited and determined, and he grabs Puck’s hand, pulling him straight towards Finn’s bedroom.

“I like this plan,” Puck says, grinning. 

“I want today to be the day,” Finn explains. He shuts the bedroom door behind them and walks Puck backwards to the far wall. 

“Yeah?” Puck raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah,” Finn says, nodding. He starts tugging down Puck’s shorts, and Puck nods back, kicking off his flip-flops and pushing at the waistband of his shorts. Finn slides Puck’s shorts down his legs, then does pulls Puck’s boxers off after them. Finn’s house doesn’t have central air, just a few old window units that can’t keep up with the heat outside, and both Puck and Finn have sweat beading on their shirtless chests. 

“Remind me why we bother to get dressed?”

“‘Cause you can’t walk down the street naked?” 

“Oh. Yeah, okay,” Puck concedes, running a finger over Finn’s chest and catching some of the beaded sweat. Finn leans over to kiss Puck good and hard once before pulling back and giving him a few quick pecks on the lips, his eyes scrunched up as he grins at Puck. “So what is it?”

“You want me to show you?” Finn asks, his smile getting shyer and a little more lopsided. 

“You don’t want to tell me?” Puck counters, trying to see if he can get Finn to blush a little. 

“It’s not a not, you know. A telling kind of thing,” Finn says. Yep. There’s the blush.

Puck grins. “Awesome.” 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. He sort of slides down onto his knees in front of Puck, grinning up at Puck with his face red. “I practiced so it would be awesome.” He rests both his hands on Puck’s thighs, palms down. 

“Damn. I would’ve watched that,” Puck says, and he would have, too, but looking at Finn in front of him on his knees is pretty damn awesome, too. 

Finn slides his hands up from Puck’s thighs to his hips and slowly leans in until his mouth touches Puck’s dick, lips parting, then Finn’s mouth moving farther and farther down Puck’s dick. Puck knows his jaw is dropping a little, because it feels more amazing than he would have thought, and it’s definitely even better than the images his brain had suggested. 

He puts one hand on Finn’s head, not really sure what to do with it, and he whimpers. “Oh, shit, Finn, that’s _awesome_.”

Finn’s head bobs up and down as he sucks on Puck’s dick, teeth scraping a little a couple of times, but mostly just Finn’s lips and tongue on him. Puck feels a little bit like his legs are going to collapse, but he puts his other hand out, leaning a little on the wall, and he keeps staring down at Finn, watching his dick disappear into Finn’s mouth. 

“Good practicing,” Puck says a little breathlessly. “Fuck, you’re good at this.” 

Finn’s eyes do the scrunching thing they do when he smiles really big, but if he’s smiling it doesn’t really show around Puck’s dick. Finn’s face does get a little pinker and he bobs his head faster, moving his mouth more forcefully. Puck’s hips jerk forward, pushing his dick deeper into Finn’s mouth, and Finn gags, coughing a little before he recovers and continues sucking. 

“Sorry,” Puck says, trying to force himself to stay still, and the hand on Finn’s head ends up pulling on Finn’s hair. Finn whimpers, and Puck tugs again, not quite as forcefully. Finn makes another whiny noise, holding tightly to Puck’s hips, and Puck can hear himself groaning in response. “Oh, shit, shit,” Puck chants, his hips jerking forward again as he starts to come in Finn’s mouth, and then he whimpers at the thought that he’s actually coming in Finn’s mouth. 

Finn’s head jerks away suddenly, Finn gagging and coughing, and Puck’s still coming, feeling like he might be supposed to be doing something different, but it feels too awesome. Finn has some of Puck’s come down his chin, and Puck can’t decide if it’s a little gross or kind of hot. 

Finn keeps coughing as he wipes his chin with his hand, blinking his watering eyes as he stares up at Puck. “That was awesome,” Puck manages, letting himself sit down finally. “C’mere.”

Finn sits next to Puck on the bed, the lopsided smile back on his face. “Yeah?” he asks.

“Fuck, yeah,” Puck says, pulling Finn’s head closer so he can kiss him. He sticks his other hand down Finn’s shorts and boxers, wrapping his hand around Finn’s dick and starting to jerk Finn off. “Fucking hot, too,” he says, tugging faster on Finn. 

“Yeah?” Finn asks again, closing his eyes and moaning. 

“Uh-huh,” Puck says, eyeing Finn’s neck. He knows Finn likes it when he bites at his lip while they kiss, and he seemed to like it when Puck pulled his hair, so Puck decides to just go for it, biting down on the side of Finn’s neck while his hand moves faster. Finn yelps and starts to come at the same time, his body practically vibrating against Puck’s. Puck keeps moving his hand and sucking on Finn’s neck until Finn stops moving, and then he kisses Finn on the lips again, leaving his hand on Finn’s dick. The evidence seems to suggest it was a good idea, but he still pulls back a little. “Good?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. 

Puck lies back on the bed, tugging Finn with him. “Hey Finn?”

“Hey Puck?” Finn answers, a little dreamily. 

“I dunno about before, but I think now, yeah. We’ve had sex.” 

“Cool,” Finn says softly. 

“Yeah. Awesome,” Puck agrees. He runs his thumb lazily down Finn’s dick. “What was it like?” 

“It didn’t taste like banana,” Finn says.

Puck laughs. “Fuck, I hope not.” He stares at Finn’s neck, a little bruise standing out where Puck bit down, and instead of asking about that, he just does it again, a little softer and a little to the side. 

“It kinda tasted like Alka Seltzer.”

“Hmmm.” Puck moves his mouth again, biting a little harder and sucking at the spot. Finn’s skin is salty and sweaty, and Puck’s probably supposed to think it’s gross, but it’s not. Finn whines a little as he rolls his head to the side, exposing his neck more. Puck grins against Finn’s neck and moves again, biting and sucking and licking a little, too. Finn’s dick is getting hard in Puck’s hand, and that makes Puck bite a little harder than he means to. 

“Puck!” Finn says, his voice husky and pleading.

“Yeah,” Puck says, staring at the series of marks he’s left on Finn’s neck. “Just tell me what you want. Fuck, that’s hot, too.” Because all the bite marks and little bruises are pretty hot, when Puck thinks about it. 

“I don’t know,” Finn answers. “I don’t know what I want. I want _something_. I don’t know what, though.”

“I don’t know, either,” Puck admits, because he’s completely resisted the urge to look anything up online. “I can keep doing this?”

“Yeah. That feels good,” Finn says. “You can bite me some more if you want, too.”

Puck laughs. “That was actually what I meant, dork.” He moves his hand slowly on Finn’s dick and uses his other hand to tilt Finn’s head back before he runs his tongue over Finn’s neck. He bites down, squeezing his hand at the same time, and closes his eyes to listen. Finn moans and whimpers, and when Puck pulls away to reposition his mouth, Finn whines just a little. Puck grins and bites down again, sucking Finn’s skin into his mouth. He shifts his weight, moving his dick against Finn’s side, and keeps jerking Finn off. 

It doesn’t take very long at all for Finn to come again, even faster that Puck expected. Puck grins to himself against Finn’s neck, then pulls his hand out of Finn’s shorts and grabs Finn’s hand with it. He puts both their hands on his own dick, and he kisses Finn, pushing his tongue inside Finn’s mouth. Finn sucks on Puck’s tongue, moving his hand faster, rougher, on Puck’s dick. Puck thrusts his hips against Finn’s hand and towards Finn, until he comes, and Puck pulls back from their kiss with a gasp. 

“Dork?” Puck mumbles a moment later. 

“‘M not a dork, you’re a dork,” Finn grumbles. 

“That was awesome, _dork_ ,” Puck says. “You came really fast. It was cool.”

“Yeah?” Finn asks. He ducks his head, his forehead against the side of Puck’s head, but Puck can see the red blush creeping across Finn’s chest. 

“Yeah.” Puck grins and puts his hand on top of the blush. “Means I’m awesome, right?”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “You _are_. You’re the awesomest.”

“You wanna shower?” Puck asks. “We’re like, covered in jizz.” 

“Yeah. We kinda are. You want the shower first?”

“Nah,” Puck says, sitting up and pulling on Finn’s hand. “C’mon.” They haven’t showered together before, but it seems like they _should_ , somehow, and anyway, Puck wants to. Finn lets himself be pulled to the shower, where he starts the water, never quite breaking contact with Puck. Puck grins at him and kisses him under the shower spray, wondering if they could manage to really kiss underwater, the next time they sneak into the Gordons’ pool. 

Puck and Finn spend the rest of the afternoon lying under the air conditioner in the living room window, clean shorts and nothing else, not even boxers, on. They kiss some, but there’s no more sex, and when Puck hears Carole’s car approaching, he sits up with a heavy sigh. 

“I told Ma I’d come home for dinner,” he says to Finn. “Julie wants to show me something.” 

“Okay,” Finn says. “You wanna come back over after?”

“Yeah, as long as Ma lets me.” Puck grins at Finn and stands up slowly as Carole comes in the house. “Hey, Mrs. Hudson. Bye, Mrs. Hudson.” 

“Oh, hello, Noah,” Carole says, and Puck heads towards the door. “Hi, Finn.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Finn, what on earth happened to your neck?” Puck can hear as he starts to open the door, and he freezes. 

“I dunno,” Finn says. “Guess something must’ve bit me.”

“ _Bit_ you?” Carole says incredulously, and Puck lets the door shut behind him before he starts laughing. Something _definitely_ bit Finn’s neck, but he’s pretty sure Carole has no idea what—or who—it was. 

 

Friday is Puck’s birthday, and since his ma says he has to be home for dinner and clean for birthday dinner with Nana, he gets up earlier than usual and heads to Finn’s house. It’s not quite as hot, since it’s still morning, but he’s still sweating by the time he gets there and knocks. 

“Hey! Happy birthday!” Finn says as he flings the door open. He grabs Puck’s hand and pulls him in, slamming the door behind them. 

“I’m older than you now,” Puck says with a grin. 

“I’m still taller,” Finn counters. 

“That’s not anything I did,” Puck says, shrugging. “I have to get dressed up for dinner with Nana tonight.” 

“Get your mom to take a picture and you can show me,” Finn says. “Come on.” He walks towards his bedroom, dragging Puck with him. 

“I’m not gonna show you a picture of me looking like a dork,” Puck argues. “You know Ma’ll make me put on a tie or something.”

“I like you looking like a dork,” Finn insists. He kicks his bedroom door shut and then shoves Puck back against it, sinking to the floor, his hands catching Puck’s shorts and pulling them down, too. 

“That’s crazy,” Puck says, stepping out of his shorts and watching Finn’s mouth. Finn doesn’t even try to get Puck’s shorts all the way off, leaving them around Puck’s ankles as he takes Puck’s dick into his mouth. Puck grabs at Finn’s hair, shaking a little. “Fuck, yeah, that’s good,” he says, and it is, because as awesome as Finn’s mouth felt the first time, Finn keeps getting even better, even though Puck keeps thinking that isn’t possible. Finn’s mouth feels perfect around him, and he grins down at Finn. Finn smiles back as much as he can around Puck’s dick, just the corners of his mouth curling and his eyes scrunching. 

Puck pushes his hips forward just a little, making sure Finn doesn’t gag, and he tugs on Finn’s hair. He could probably just watch Finn’s mouth on him all day, even if he couldn’t feel it, but the combination is even better, and he pulls a little harder on Finn’s head. Finn moans and it reverberates through Puck’s dick. 

“Fuck, your mouth is awesome,” Puck says. “You should see how fucking hot this looks.” 

Finn’s head bobs up and down, his hands grip Puck’s hips tightly, and he moans again, his tongue and mouth sliding along Puck’s dick. Puck can feel his breathing speed up, and he tries to gasp out a warning, pulling on Finn’s hair again as his hips thrust forward, his dick sliding deeper into Finn’s mouth. Puck comes with another jerk of his hips, whining as he does. Finn holds Puck’s hips, not pulling away, and Puck can feel Finn’s tongue pressing against him as Finn swallows. 

“So fucking awesome,” Puck says to Finn. “Could just watch you, even, you know?”

Finn smiles up at Puck, staring at Puck with his clear goldeny-brown eyes, and Puck pulls him up to his feet, kissing him. Puck’s almost used to the taste of come when he kisses Finn, not enough that he misses it the rest of the time, but he half-expects it. He nips at Finn’s neck, pulling the skin between his teeth, then leans back against the door again. 

“You’re really good at that.” 

Finn blushes and smiles wider. “Thanks,” he says. 

“S’true. Good birthday start,” Puck says, grinning at Finn’s blush. Puck slides his hand down Finn’s chest, circling his belly button twice before dropping lower. 

“You don’t have to jerk me off,” Finn says. “It’s your birthday. I did that for _you_.”

“But I like jerking you off,” Puck protests, then stops, because it’s a little weird to say out loud. It’s true, though, now that he’s thinking about it. He _likes_ Finn’s dick in his hand, likes how hard Finn gets and how he comes all over Puck’s hand, which is probably why the next thing he says is “I like your dick.” 

Finn grins widely, face still pinkish. “Yeah? I like your dick, too.”

Puck laughs a little. “Yeah, I noticed.” He kisses Finn again, and while they’re kissing, he puts his hand around Finn’s dick and strokes upward. “Our dicks are pretty awesome.” That sounds a lot like a declaration Puck’s not really wanting to make, but their dicks _are_ awesome, and he tightens his grip on Finn’s. “Really, really awesome, dork.” 

 

Puck spends the time over the next eleven days that he’s not with Finn and not sleeping or eating or playing board games with Julie thinking about the fact that Finn blows him and then he jerks Finn off, and Finn hasn’t even asked for Puck to blow him. 

Puck’s pretty sure Finn would want it, if Puck offered, which Puck thinks that means Finn’s waiting for Puck to offer, so Puck just thinks about it, a lot, and that’s probably why, when they sit down in front of Finn’s television set after lunch on the next day, it’s still in the back of his mind. 

“Let’s see what’s on pay-per-view,” Puck suggests. “We never have, and it’s August already.”

“Wow, yeah,” Finn says. “Summer’s going so fast!” He turns the tv on and clicks through to the pay-per-view, slowly scrolling through a list of fairly recent movies, until he reaches the section of listings with red backgrounds and titles that read like really bad plays off the fairly recent movies.

“ _The Dick Knight_?” Puck reads, then laughs. “That’s kind of ridiculous.”

“It’s Batman. You can’t knock Batman,” Finn argues. “Though, how do you think he does it with the suit on?”

“Batporn,” Puck says, shaking his head. “Maybe porn Batman has a different suit.”

“Maybe,” Finn replies, looking dubious. He eyes the movie listings, then looks back over at Puck. “Should I see if Mom’ll buy the whole cable thief thing?”

“Sure. If she asks what we did today, we were… walking to the park.” 

“Which park?”

“Lincoln. It took forever and you almost got hit by a bicyclist.”

“Yeah, that was, uh. _Traumatic_ ,” Finn says. “Maybe he hit me in the neck a little bit.”

“If your mom drags you to the doctor like she was threatening last week, you’re gonna have to tell her you’re too embarrassed to talk to the doctor with her in the room,” Puck points out. “I think she’s half-convinced you’re dying of leukemia, just like she said.”

“But I could tell the doctor’s it’s just you,” Finn reasons. 

“Yeah. Doctor’d probably realize it wasn’t leukemia off the bat, though.” 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. “So, Batporn?”

“Sure. I’m thinking Batdick trap door,” Puck says, smirking. 

“That could be kinda hot,” Finn muses, pressing the button. 

“Figured naked Batman wasn’t practical,” Puck explains. 

Batman—or Porn Batman, anyway—seems to be at least mostly correctly-dressed and equipped for crime fighting, but the ladies of Gotham are definitely less so. Finn goes from watching with interest to looking at the tv askance. “I, uh.”

“Why isn’t Batman naked or at least half-naked?” Puck says. “He’s still suited up.”

Finn shrugs and grimaces as a random grateful citizen opens the front of Batman’s batsuit and starts going to town on his dick with a ton of fake moans that don’t sound anywhere near as awesome as Finn’s real ones. 

“And why so many boob shots?” Puck asks. The camera’s on her boobs more than Batman’s dick, which doesn’t seem to make much sense to Puck. “I don’t get it,” Puck admits. “I thought the point of this was the blow job.”

“I guess it’s the boobs?” Finn says. “I don’t understand. I mean, I guess she’s kinda pretty?”

“She doesn’t seem like she’s enjoying it, though,” Puck says skeptically. “Maybe girls don’t like giving blow jobs?”

“Well, that would be stupid. They’re awesome to give,” Finn insists. 

Puck shrugs and glances down at Finn’s lap and then his own. Finn’s maybe a little hard, but Puck was sort of expecting they’d be sporting huge boners because, well, porn. “Yeah?” Puck says, looking at Finn and not the disappointing Batman porn.

“Yeah,” Finn says, giving Puck the half-smile. “I love sucking your dick. It’s really hot.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees quietly, because at least on his end, it’s really hot. He presses against Finn’s side and slides his hand inside Finn’s shorts. “That’s what I think about when I jerk off. Watching you blow me,” he admits. “It’s a lot hotter than this shit.” 

“Really?” Finn asks, blushing a little. Finn gets completely hard against Puck’s hand, and Puck grins at Finn. 

“Especially when you’re blushing.” Puck tugs at the bottom of Finn’s shorts with his other hand. “Like that.” 

“I don’t!” Finn insists. He helps Puck push the shorts off, though. 

“Yeah, you do,” Puck counters. “But I like it.” He strokes Finn’s dick slowly. “Awesome, you said?”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Did you want me to suck your dick right now? ‘Cause that would be way better than this movie.”

Puck shakes his head slowly, then slides off the couch. “Not this time.” 

“No?” Finn’s eyes are wide, his breathing heavy, and his dick rock hard. 

“My turn,” Puck says, shifting in front of Finn, and he leans in, licking Finn’s dick like a popsicle. “Yeah,” he says more quietly, nodding to himself, and he slides his lips over the head of Finn’s dick. Finn moans and squirms, his hands lightly touching Puck’s head, shoulders, and face, but not grabbing. Puck takes more of Finn into his mouth, flicking his tongue over Finn’s dick experimentally. 

“Oh!” Finn breathes, both his hands coming to rest on the shaved sides of Puck’s head, not holding it, just rubbing his fingers across the sides. 

Puck opens his mouth wider, sliding his lips lower on Finn’s dick, and he’s pretty sure it feels bigger in Puck’s mouth than it does in his hand. He grabs at Finn’s hips with his hands, trying to take even more of Finn in before he starts sliding up and down along Finn’s dick. 

“That feels so good,” Finn says softly. “It feels _so_ good. Puck, oh, that feels—that feels—oh no! Puck!” Finn’s hips start jerking upward off the sofa, his hands pressing against the sides of Puck’s head as Finn starts to come in Puck’s mouth. “Sorry! I’m sorry!”

Puck tries to swallow at first, then starts to choke when he can’t really swallow fast enough, and he pulls back, some of Finn’s come hitting his cheek. “Fuck,” he says, sounding awed even to his own ears. 

“I’m sorry!” Finn says again, a little more weakly this time. “It happened so fast, I didn’t—”

“No, dork, that was awesome,” Puck interrupts him. “You were right.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, that was really hot,” Puck says, slowly moving back to the couch. “Did—did you like watching it?”

“You looked so… _sexy_ ,” Finn says in a breathy voice, like he’s surprised about it or something. “Sorry I came on your face a little, though.”

Puck shrugs and swipes at his cheek. “It’s cool. I’ll get better at the swallowing thing.” 

“Do you want me to do you now?” Finn asks. “‘Cause I want to.”

“That sounds awesome,” Puck agrees. “A lot more awesome than those fake blow jobs on Batman.” He gestures to the television, where porny Batman keeps finding grateful citizens with even bigger boobs. 

“I don’t understand why anybody wants to pay to watch those,” Finn admits, picking up the remote and clicking the tv off. He puts his hand on the front of Puck’s shorts, rubbing Puck’s dick through the fabric. “This is _way_ better.”

“Yeah.” Puck grins. “Maybe porn’s just for losers who aren’t having sex.”

 

“Hey, Puck?” Finn asks quietly. It’s cooler this week than it’s been for over a month, but Finn’s room is still hot, and sweat—not all of it Finn’s—pools in Finn’s belly button as Puck sprawls across him post-blow job. 

“Yeah?” Puck says, equally quiet. 

“I’m not ready to go back to school,” Finn confesses. 

“Ugh.” Puck groans. “Fuck. No.” They’d gone to football tryouts over the weekend, which had been hot and sweaty in a very un-sexy way, but then, weekends over the summer weren’t Puck’s favorites, since they were hardly ever alone. “You think we could pass that equivalency thing?”

“And then we could just skip high school and do this all day instead,” Finn says. “Yeah, we probably could.”

“Yeah.” Puck nods a little, kissing at Finn’s shoulder. “When are we gonna get time alone?”

Finn shrugs. “I dunno. At least we’ll be able to see each other all day at school, so we won’t be lonely.”

“Yeah, but last year, we didn’t know about having sex, but now we do, so it’s gonna suck,” Puck points out. 

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. He runs ones of his hands down Puck’s back and up again. “You’re sweaty.”

“So’re you,” Puck points out. He licks Finn’s neck to make his point. “Salty.” 

Finn wriggles underneath Puck, pulling him more on top of Finn and licking _his_ neck. “Yeah. I like it. I like you sweaty ‘cause I made you sweaty.”

“Yeah, you did,” Puck agrees. “You didn’t tell me what the doctor said about your horrible disease.”

“Uh, well, I had to tell him that it was somebody doing it to me,” Finn says. “But then he said something about my _girlfriend_ and I told him I didn’t have a _girl_ friend.”

Puck laughs. “Did he turn funny colors or anything?” 

“Then he asked me a lot of questions, but I just pretended like I didn’t understand what he was saying, so then the nurse came in and gave me a lollipop and I got to leave,” Finn says.

“Awesome.” Puck goes back to nibbling on Finn’s shoulder for a few minutes. “Wait, what kind of questions?”

“Like, you know, what kind of _behaviors_ I was engaging in,” Finn says. “Don’t stop!” He wiggles his shoulder at Puck. 

“Biting behaviors,” Puck says, nipping at Finn again. “That’s what kind.”

“Like… were you way older than me, or had you ever offered me any money,” Finn says, shrugging the shoulder Puck isn’t biting. “And he asked me something about anal something-something, but I just told him I didn’t know what that was, and then he got flustered and stopped asking me stuff.”

“Anal?” Puck says. “You _do_ know what he meant, right?”

“Yeah, it’s doing it in the butt, duh,” Finn says. “Everybody knows that.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that right now,” Puck says, picking a fresh place to bite. 

“Nope,” Finn says cheerfully. “You can do that harder, you know.” He sighs happily when Puck nips him harder, then stills. “Wait. Did you, uh. Did you want to be?”

“Um, not like _right now_ ,” Puck says uncertainly. “Did you?”

“I don’t know how that works,” Finn says. “Seems like maybe it would hurt. I mean, if you wanted to, I would, though.”

“I don’t think sex is supposed to hurt,” Puck points out. “Any kind of sex. Maybe we just have to do it right.”

“How do we know if we’re doing it right, though? I mean, if you even _want_ to, which if you don’t, we don’t ever have to, but if you do, we could, if you want,” Finn sort of babbles. “But do you? Want to?”

“Well, yeah,” Puck admits. “Not today or tomorrow or anything, but yeah.” He bites down once, hard, before he continues. “Maybe it’s something you can Google? But like, we could wait and Google it at school, so our moms don’t know we Googled it.” There’s the two guys at temple who are together, but Puck’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to ask them, for a lot of reasons. 

“Would you want to do it with _me_?” Finn asks. “Some time. Not today or tomorrow.”

“Duh,” Puck says. “You saw the rest of the guys trying out for football. Why would I want to with any of them?”

Finn shrugs. “I dunno.” He’s quiet for a minute, then says, “I’d want to with you just ‘cause it’s you.”

“See?” Puck says. “Exactly.” He pulls back a little and grins at Finn. “Don’t take off your shirt around your mom.” 

“Doctor told her I was fine,” Finn says. He looks down at his shoulders and chest. “Oh, yeah, there’s a bunch now!”

“You said to keep biting,” Puck points out. “And I like the way you taste, so why would I stop?”

“I didn’t want you to stop. I don’t want you to stop _now_.”

“Okay, okay,” Puck pretends to grumble, shifting to the other side of Finn’s chest and biting down hard. “Better?”

Finn lifts his hips off the bed to grind against Puck. “Mmmhmm. More, though.”

“Mmmhmm,” Puck agrees through his teeth, shifting his leg a little so Finn can grind against it. He pulls the bitten skin into his mouth, grinding down a little against Finn himself. Finn whimpers and whines and moans, grabbing at Puck’s back and hips as Puck keeps biting him, finally grabbing half of Puck’s ass in one hand and squeezing as he rocks up against Puck’s leg. Puck whines a little himself, biting lower and moving with Finn’s motions. 

“Feels so good,” Finn mutters, grinding harder against Puck. “Feels so good, Puck. Love you.”

Puck keeps moving, licking and biting at Finn’s chest, and Finn freezes, going completely still under Puck. Puck is confused for a split second, until he mentally reviews what Finn said, and then he stops moving, too. 

“I’m sorry, it just came out,” Finn whispers almost frantically. “Just pretend I didn’t say it! I’m so dumb!”

Puck isn’t sure what to say, but since Finn wants to sort of gloss over it and ignore it, Puck nods and lifts his head enough to kiss Finn, a little roughly. The only person Puck can remember hearing those words from before is Julie, and that’s definitely not the same as Finn saying it. He’s not sure what to say, even if Finn hadn’t backtracked, so he just keeps kissing Finn. 

They keep grinding until they come all over each other, again, and for the rest of the day, Finn doesn’t bring it up again. They take a watermelon out on the patio and split it, and Puck catches Finn looking at him almost wistfully a few times. 

“What?” Puck finally asks. “What’s wrong, dork?”

“I’m thinking about school starting,” Finn says, looking away again. 

“Oh. Yeah.” Puck sighs and stares down at his watermelon. “Fucking high school.”

“Yeah,” Finn says softly. “Fucking high school.”

 

The first day of ninth grade, Puck climbs on the bus and goes as far back as he can, sprawling across an entire seat, and when they get to Finn’s stop, he straightens and slides against the window. Finn grins when he sees Puck, dropping down into the seat next to him. When the bus starts moving, Finn reaches for Puck’s hand without even seeming to realize he’s doing it.

Puck pulls his hand away and nudges Finn in the side. “What’re you doing, dork?” he whispers. 

Finn looks down at his hand, then over at Puck, and deliberately moves his hand to rest on his own knee. The look he gives Puck his best trying-not-to-look-sad face. “Sorry,” he whispers back. He doesn’t try to take Puck’s hand again for the rest of the bus trip, or try to touch him at all, more than his leg resting against Puck’s. 

The bus pulls up beside McKinley, and Puck takes a deep breath. He’s pretty sure everyone’s looking for some kind of weakness, so they’ve got to make sure they don’t look weak. “Here we go,” he says under his breath to Finn, looking out the windows at the guys greeting each other and the guys shoving each other, and the couple of guys who already look like they’re getting harassed by other guys. 

“I’m taller than all those guys,” Finn whispers. “And we’re on the football team. We’re gonna be fine.”

“And I have a badass haircut,” Puck adds as they stand up to file off the bus. 

“Yeah, you do,” Finn says. He bumps Puck with his shoulder and grins at him a little sappily. 

Puck freezes for a split second, making himself look less concerned about anything and especially Finn. “Let’s just go find our homerooms,” Puck says, looking around and noticing the guys doing the harassing are looking around again. “Okay?”

“Oh.” Finn’s face falls. “Yeah, okay.”

Puck frowns, because Finn just doesn’t _get_ it, and he sighs a little. “Maybe we’ll have all our classes together or something,” he offers when they get to the door. 

“Yeah, maybe,” Finn says, brightening. 

They find Finn’s homeroom first, and Puck stops to look inside it for a second. “Later, dork,” he says to Finn. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you first period, maybe,” Finn says cheerfully, then he puts his hand on Puck’s back and starts to pull him in for a hug.

“ _Dude_ ,” Puck hisses, pushing Finn away as gently as he can and still get the message across. “Not here!”

Finn startles and pulls his arms in to his chest, staring at Puck with wide, hurt eyes. Puck thinks Finn couldn’t have look more hurt if Puck had actually hit him. He blinks his eyes rapidly, but they still look a little shiny.

“Okay,” Finn says quietly, then he turns and walks into the classroom without another word. He takes a seat behind a chubby-faced kid with weird clothes, staring back at Puck in the doorway with sad eyes. 

Puck sighs and heads down the hall to his own homeroom, glowering at the kids that pass, especially a tiny girl with a headband who looks both bossy and vaguely familiar. He may even knock a kid down, but Puck isn’t really paying attention, and he slumps into his assigned seat and crosses his arms as the homeroom teacher starts talking about their schedules.


End file.
